House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday condemned companies that pay women less than men, but was unwilling to condemn Senate Democrats who pay their female staffers less than male staffers, saying that the Senate is “another world.”

Speaking in Washington, D.C., Pelosi reminded everyone that there shouldn’t be income disparity between men and women.

“It’s 2012. It’s 2012, everybody. What is it we’re talking about women getting paid less? Are you going home to your little girls each day and saying: ‘Work hard, study hard, be diligent so that when you grow up you can make less than your brother?”

She added, “There seems to be a decision somewhere in some companies and parts of our economy that that’s an okay thing to do.”

The Daily Caller asked Pelosi about a report in the Washington Free Beacon that revealed that women working for Senate Democrats in 2011 had an average salary of $60,877, whereas male staffers made about $6,500 more.

Pelosi chose not to condemn the Democratic senators, claiming that it is “another world.”

“When I was speaker, I was [the] highest paid person on Capitol Hill and the women took great joy in that,” she said, making an apparent defense of the current pay disparity.